Well, the world’s not collapsing. It’s reorganizing; quietly, aggressively, and faster than most people are ready for. AI isn’t something that’s coming. It’s already here, and it’s not just replacing tasks. It’s replacing people, real jobs and real workflows. Whole departments that used to anchor companies are disappearing.
And while that’s happening, trillions of dollars in capital are just sitting. It’s parked in funds, VC portfolios, private equity, family offices, REITs, and sovereign wealth. Everyone is waiting to see what breaks and trying to figure out where it’s all going to go next. Because before capital moves, it waits. It watches what’s being hollowed out and where the pressure is starting to build.
You can feel it. You’ve probably seen it already, in the Facebook scroll, the Instagram stories, the TikTok feed. It’s baked into headlines most people don’t even click. Low-cost tools for basic survival are growing, while luxury services and niche concierge offers are exploding. But the reliable, comfortable, middle-market models are quietly vanishing, and no one’s doing much to fix it. Inside the companies and in their meeting rooms, people aren’t celebrating wins. They’re trying to hold things together.
Because a $70,000 salary is hard to justify when a $300/month system does the same job. No insurance, no burnout and no breaks. It’s not personal, but it’s painful. And the worst part is, that pain gets absorbed by people who didn’t do anything wrong.
Look, We’re Not Rooting For This.
No one’s excited about cutting jobs, and no one we respect is cheering on automation like it’s a win. We’ve worked with people, built teams from scratch, and made payroll when it hurt.
We held on to folks longer than we should have because we actually cared. That hasn’t changed. And we still hate watching good people get pushed out. But pretending this isn’t happening is worse. So we’re doing what we can, not to save the whole system, but to protect what still matters when the dust settles. That means running it clean, keeping people employed, and leaving something standing, even if we’re the last ones holding the line.
It’s not vanishing. It’s getting quieter, more cautious, and more selective. It’s sitting on the sidelines, watching to see what still works and what can hold under pressure. Capital is moving toward outcomes that matter, businesses that cash flow, and infrastructure that isn’t easy to break.
From our vantage point, there are five categories where it’s already starting to move:
Essential infrastructure: Core services tied to survival, legal compliance, or regulated systems. (healthcare, logistics, energy, and education)
Top 10-20% consumer markets: Not because it’s fair, but because it’s real. Because people with discretionary income keep spending, even when the bottom falls out.
AI-enabled, human-anchored businesses: This is where AI runs the systems, but a real person still needs to show up and make the call.
Simple, high-margin, low-fragility operations: These are the ones where small teams run clean books, real cash is coming in, and the thing just works. No drama and it’s hard to kill.
Public-private crossover models: Think digital ID rails, private healthcare delivery, and UBI systems. The government’s outsourcing the future and the capital is watching closely.
Let’s be clear. This isn’t some doomsday narrative, and it’s not a prediction either. It’s already happening in real time, and the truth is it’s not clean. There are tradeoffs, infrastructure gaps, and energy burdens that come with this shift, and a lot of it traces back to the technical layer underneath everything.
Let’s take a look. AI burns power because it needs chips, compute, cooling, water, and coordination to run at scale. That doesn’t slow anything down, it just controls the pace. Big tech controls the infrastructure. Nuclear pilots are being tested and data centers are going live every month. Even if the full rollout takes another 10 years, the direction is already clear. Capital isn’t waiting for perfect conditions. It’s moving toward what won’t break next year, while the rest of the system starts to tighten.
The system isn’t falling apart, but it is pulling tighter. Access is getting more limited, more people are being pushed out, and fewer are being let in. If AI replaces 25% of white-collar labor by 2029, which is already a conservative estimate, tens of millions will likely be displaced. If that climbs to 40% or 50% by 2034, the impact won’t look like a disaster movie. It’ll feel normal and quiet, until one day you look around and realize that people are gone, but the work is still getting done. This isn’t extinction, it’s more of a thinning of access, a shift in control, and a quiet reshuffling of who still gets to play. The road ahead is still there, but it’s a lot narrower than it used to be.
